Zlist update

I've been amazed, then delighted and then disturbed by the response to the zlist plexo I posted.

My original intent was to make it easy for people who weren't on the list to be on the list. I knew after I posted the list I found that I'd hear from a bunch of bloggers asking to be added. Alas, I don't have the time or the energy (or even the skill) to figure out which ones to add, so I decided to make it an open list.

You may have heard the expression, "everything in moderation." I wonder if it needs to be, "everything needs a moderator."

The open list doesn't seem to work in porous, anonymous communities where there is a lot of self-interest involved. The potential for bad actors to spoil it for everyone else is quite large. (The lists that have been posted on other lenses that are focused on egoless topics are attracting fewer visitors but get more thoughtful votes).

Several bloggers worked hard to game the list I posted, instructing folks to vote other (worthy) blogs down. That's sad.

Several bloggers added their blogs even though they were clearly irrelevant to the point of the list.

And many bloggers got their feelings hurt because if there's a list, and you're competitive, then being near the bottom of the list is a bad thing.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

My intent from the beginning was not to game technorati nor to create a competitive environment for bloggers. It was simple: to provide a platform with traffic that would make it easy for good blogs on marketing and similar topics to get read. I still believe that we need that. I'm hopeful that with a moderator (and some changes to the plexo algorithm, which we're instituting over the next week or two) we can accomplish that.

So, I'm looking for a moderator. If you think you'd like to run the lens, promote it, improve it, etc., stop by the site and enter a paragraph in the comments field at the bottom (and I need way to contact you!). My first thought was to give Mack something else to do, but he is opposed to rankings like this, and I respect that.  If I can't find someone to give the page to, then I'll probably shut it down. The web is a daily experiment, and this one, like most, was interesting. I'm disappointed that a few dozen had such an impact on the rest of us...